Stud colt no more...

So little baby Yeezy got gelded today. My vet said he was very well behaved and should recover great. He also had his shoes pulled and feet trimmed over the weekend and the farrier said he was great to work with. I haven't worked with too many babies but he does seem to be one of the more easy going ones I have met. On Saturday George and I took Kanye and Sirius for a walk around our property and I was really amazing at how well they both behaved. Sirius has expressed some fear towards horses in the past but this time around he was really good and curious about Kanye but not overly excited or intrusive into his space. Kanye also was amazingly calm especially considering he walked through our farming area, past the goats, chickens and swans, up the driveway and chilled out in front of the house and around all the cars. So far he is a super baby and I am crossing my fingers nothing changes!

His recovery plan from the gelding procedure involves lunging for 10 minutes twice a day so this week is going to be a little bit of a struggle for me trying to fit everything in. I'm going to have to walk Gatsby in the mornings or else I will be home too late to do anything with Kanye but getting them both out in the morning will require some VERY early waking up on my part. No big deal though, it won't be for too long and it's worth it for some extra time with my boys.


Tonight, I am off to see the original Kanye with one of my best friends down in LA!!! Very excited.

xoxo,
Elena

Sunshine Award!

Thank you Lauren for nominating us for the Sunshine Award! Very exciting as it is my first award!!!

The Sunshine Award is for people who “positively and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere.” The nominee must do the following: thank the person who nominated her, nominate ten bloggers of her own, answer the ten questions given to her, and post them and the Sunshine Award button to her blog.

Here are the questions:

1. Mares or Geldings? Geldings! I don't actually have a strong preference but seeing as Gatsby and Kanye are both geldings (or soon to be) I figured I should choose that. However, a couple of my favorite upper-level eventers (Gin N' Juice and Andromaque) are mares so I am not too biased.
2. English or Western? English. I sort of dabbled in Western when I was first starting to ride but it never really piqued my interest. 
3. Do you prefer “younger” or “older” horses? Hard to say but I think younger. I obviously love Gatsby and even though he is 17 he doesn't come off any older than 7. I think it's a lot of fun to work with younger horses but I wouldn't say no to sitting on a schoolmaster every once in a while!
4. Have you trained a horse from ground zero? Not quite. My first horse, Belle, was a homebred but while I did work with her a lot throughout the whole training process, I was DEFINITELY not the one who trained her. Gatsby was very green when I got him but had been off the track for a while already and had already started jumping. Kanye will be my first! Although, he does have a lot of groundwork covered already and has technically already been broken.
5. Do you prefer riding or groundwork? Riding for sure. Although I am enjoying some serious time on the ground with my boys lately I would definitely prefer to be riding them.
6. Do you board your horse or keep it at home? 50/50. Gatsby is boarded at an AMAZING facility in Santa Barbara and Kanye is chilling at home while he grows up.
7. Do you do all natural things or just commercial stuff?(in sense of products) I think I mostly use commercial just because it's what I know but I am not opposed to natural. In fact, I see a homeopathic doctor myself and years back I had her do a work-up on Gatsby to try and get some more weight on him.
8. All tacked up or bareback? 50/50. I love riding in my tack and galloping and jumping and feeling totally secure but I also love jumping on bareback, I feel much more connected with Gatsby and I actually feel like our dressage work is better than with a saddle.
9. Equestrian role model? Tiana Coudray. I have had the pleasure of meeting her many times as we evented in the same Area when she was based in the US and she also was good friends with my trainer and some of the other girls at my barn. She is such a nice person and man that girl can RIDE! She is a beautiful rider and her current mount, Ringwood Magister, is probably my favorite upper-level horse.
10. What’s your one, main goal, while being in the horses world? Realistically? I would love to compete at an FEI level event one day, hopefully with Gatsby. In fantasy world? Rolex Kentucky, DUH!

Thanks again Lauren, this was super fun!!

And now, on to my nominees (many of whom I'm sure have already been nominated).

• Chasing the Dream
• The Process of Learning
• On A Steel Horse
• Pacific Coast Eventing
• Sprinkler Bandit
• The Jumping Percheron
• The Polka-Dot Periodical - the one that got me into blogging!!!
• The Reeling
• Viva Carlos
• Alchemy Eventing

Welcome Home Kanye!

As I'm sure you have seen from my Instagram posts (if you follow me), Baby Yeezy made it home safely on Saturday morning. According to the shipper he was very well behaved and he came off the trailer to his new home with no issue. Yay!!! I'm not going to lie, because all of this happened so quickly and I didn't get to meet the shipper or hand over the cash directly to his previous owner, I had quite a few fears of being ripped off and ending up with no money and no horse. Luckily, everything went VERY smoothly and both the shipper and the dealer I went through to purchase him were absolutely AMAZING and I would strongly recommend both of them.

Back to baby; like I said, he was great coming off the trailer and, although definitely very surprised by his new surroundings, walked to his new pasture calmly like a champ. He literally has done a complete 180 in terms of living situation so I could not be happier with how he handled things. He went from living at the busy backside of a racetrack to living in a pasture 24/7 on a ranch with some other horses to keep him company. The first thing he did in his new home was take a walk around and explore before settling down to munch some hay.

For now he is separated from the other 3 horses by a fence and hey were up in the hills when he arrived so he got some nice time to get used to his new home before being harassed by them. Unfortunately, when they did show up he was quite interested in them and when they chose to leave again, threw quite a fit. In order to restore some calm and to force them to actually get to know each other I shut them in their paddock as well. They still have plenty of space to roam around but not access to the hills and trails that they usually do.

All in all, I think it was a successful homecoming although he did throw a hind shoe when he was pining over the other horses. Seeing as I was planning on pulling at least the hinds anyway I'm not too bothered except that I don't yet know when the farrier can come out. He seems to be doing fine though and doesn't seem sore even though it was definitely not a clean pull.

In other news, Gatsby is doing as well as I could hope. He still has a little bit of edema surrounding the injury but that is to be expected. We move up to 15 minute walks this week. I know, super exciting!

xoxo,
Elena

TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tomorrow morning I will be crashing all your Instagram feeds with adorable photos of Kanye.

Not this Kanye but he's pretty amazing also...

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

xoxo, Elena

Spoiled Ponies

Still waiting on Gatsby's Ice Horse Tendon boots to ship.

Decided Kanye has to be just as spoiled as Gatsby. At least as much as I can reasonably afford. That means nice leather halter with a name plate and SmartPaks. I chatted with one of their reps today and he will be getting SmartVite Thrive. Looks pretty good to me. He doesn't need much as he won't be in work but I do want to make sure he has all the nutrients he needs to grow up to be a healthy pony.

When he is all done growing and I have saved some more he will get one of these http://www.smartpakequine.com/blue-ribbon-custom-day-sheet-2518p?ProductID=2109670636&cm_sp=wishlist-_-add-_-na in my colors. I know it is a lot for just a sheet but I have one for Gatsby that was a Christmas present when I first got him and I LOVE it. I really only use it at shows but I just think he looks so smart and handsome in it.

xoxo, Elena

I did it!!!

Well guys, I did it!! Baby Kanye will be coming home to me this Saturday! Still can't believe it all came together. As the real Yeezy would say "that shit cray!".

Love this boy already haha! 

And So It Goes

Today marks one week since Gatsby's injury. Also the start of our first week of hand-walking. His leg still had a little bit of edema yesterday when I went out to ice so I am opting to give him today off and start hand-walking tomorrow. Probably didn't help that he came galloping over to see me when I got there yesterday:( Our vet said he would prefer for him to stay in turnout so he has room to move which I'm glad to do as he is SUPER miserable when boxed up but it does worry me that he won't let himself recover.

In other news, got a text yesterday that the TB I looked at at the track is still available. Trying to see if I can coordinate logistics to bring him home and get him gelded. Waiting to hear if I'll be able to vet him right now. I will keep you guys informed!

Puppy and husband are happy and healthy so that's wonderful. Still enjoying lots of love and snuggles from Gatsby.

xoxo,

Elena

Barn Mornings

Been spending all my mornings at the barn this week. As sad as it is to see Gatsby injured I have really enjoyed the quiet time with him to start my day off. He has been a dream and is so sweet and happy to see me in the mornings, he literally just wants to cuddle. Even when his bucket of grain is right in front of him.

We ice for two more days and then Monday we start hand walking. I always enjoy walks with him and I think this will be a good period for us to just connect and not worry about any goals or competitions, etc. The most important thing right now is the time we still get to spend together.

If any of you feel like following along with our morning adventures I usually post pictures on Instagram, username NauticalCowgirl. I will definitely continue with blogging as well but there probably won't be much to talk about for a while. You never know though!

Also, I am withdrawing from the 2-Point Challenge since I won't be riding for the remainder of October, we start tack walking the 2nd week of November. Good luck to everyone who is still in it!

xoxo,
Elena and Gatsby

Not the Best News...

Well, he looked way better this morning and I had my fingers crossed for a clean ultrasound but alas, it was not to be. He has a small tear in the superficial digital flexor tendon. Not the worst news we could have gotten but also not the best.

We will continue with icing and bute for a week and handwalking for three weeks and then gradually bring him back to work. Honestly, I am obviously very sad that he is hurt at all but at least it's going to be during the Winter when he wouldn't be able to run and play as much as he wants anyway.

I'm just so glad it's not any worse. Love that boy with all my heart.

xoxo,
Elena

More waiting

So our vet came out today and said (thank goodness) that he doesn't think it's a tendon injury! I wasn't there but was informed that Gatsby didn't seem very reactive to palpation. There is still a chance that it is a soft tissue injury though so we do need to ultrasound. Right now there is too much edema to get a good visual so we will be moving him to a smaller turnout and icing twice a day along with administrating bute and dex. Dr. Goss will be back Wednesday afternoon to ultrasound so keep your fingers crossed please!

Thank you all for your sweet messages on my last post. If there had to be just one reason to be glad I started blogging again it would be the sense of community and support from all of you.

I've also scratched from the Fresno HT. It's disappointing as we were on a great roll and I felt a good comeback in action but obviously something wasn't right. Luckily the season is winding down so we have plenty of time to put a plan together and get back in action for the spring!

xoxo,
Elena & Gatsby

The Waiting Game

This morning I got the dreaded phone call from my BM "I think Gatsby's done a tendon". She says he is off about 3 on a 1 to 5 scale and it is visible at the walk. I've gone through a few mood swings of bad to worse and back to bad. Our vet is coming out in about an hour so I will know more by the end of the day. We did some XC prep for the horse trials yesterday and the footing was a little hard. He also had a weird moment where he stumbled through a ditch instead of jumping it. Either one could have hurt him or it could have been something totally different. I will update as soon as I have more info.

I also went to look at that colt at the track last weekend. Super cute and such a sweetie but unfortunately someone else had already put down a deposit. They are going to call me if that falls through.

Not too worried about that at the moment, just want to make sure my main man is ok.

xoxo,
Elena

In other news...

I am seriously considering buying this horse http://www.equineracers.com/db/Classifieds_view.php?editid1=342.

I am totally not looking for a new horse right now but I was browsing CANTER CA (always) and stumbled upon him and fell in love. He's really young so my hope would be that (if I did end up buying him) I would just keep him in our pasture at home for a while, let him finish growing, do basic work with him and then move him to the barn in a few years and bring Gatsby home to chill out.

Who knows. Probably a stupid idea but I am obsessed and when I suggested it to George he said I should go for it. Hah! Best and worst answer.

My friend and I are probably going to go see him this weekend, I will let you know how it goes!

xoxo,
Elena

Prep, prep, prep

Well, as Fresno seems to be rapidly approaching I have to say, I am getting less and less nervous and more and more excited! I'm sure that will change at some point but right now I am just stoked to be able to compete with Gatsby again. That horse is such a beast on XC, it's a huge privilege to get around with him.

I really want to be competitive at this show and make my money well-spent, not going for blue or anything but I want to make sure we perform the best that we are capable of. In doing so I have managed to spend even more money by signing up for some extra lessons and a dressage schooling show as well as buying some new show gear. I have to say, I am more than incredibly grateful to have such a wonderful supportive husband who totally understands that this is my passion and is fine with the time and money I spend on it.

Last weekend we had a really good jump school, worked some more on a grid and then did a serpentine exercise. Gatsby is jumping really well and I am feeling more confident on him. That's not to say that we don't have our issues though! I definitely ride better in the grid than I do to single fences and we have a really tough time getting a good spot to an airy vertical. This weekend we are going to do some XC schooling and then next week we will work on some courses to prep for the show.

On Sunday we had a dressage lesson with Ludgar. I always love riding with him, he is just so in tune to Gatsby. Unfortunately his lessons are pretty pricey so they don't happen often. We ran through my test and he gave me some really good information to get the most out of Gatsby. He said for the trot I really need to keep him moving VERY forward or else he has a tendency to look like he is not moving over his back. Also with the lengthened canter on the circle, always tough, he suggested I ride as if there's a jump on the opposite side of the circle to make sure I really keep the impulsion, this helped loads! If I get him in front of my leg during the regular canter circle and then do this for the lengthening he is spectacular. Ludgar said that his canter work is just as good as any of the horses out there which really pleased me as I have done a lot lately to get that gait to where it is. Unfortunately the same is not true of his trot work, he does go nicely but there is always going to be those warmbloods that outshine him in that area. Because of this it is really important that I not leave any points on the table with our canter and also with geometry.

Overall I think things are definitely going in a good direction! This week has been really busy for me at work so I won't get a chance to ride until tomorrow. He lives outside 24/7 now so a few days off here and there doesn't effect him like it used to which is great. We'll do some more dressage schools and a probably a conditioning day as well as an XC schooling this week.Then next week we will school courses and we have the dressage schooling show on Sunday. Really hoping that helps out with both of our nerves heading to the sandbox at the event.

xoxo,

Elena